Additional Praise for James W. Perkinson s White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity In this fascinating and inspiring book, Perkinson accomplishes two things that seem virtually impossible. First, he makes visible the invisible. While black reality in the United States has been subject to countless analyses, white reality appears to be impossible to grasp. The book reads the latter in light of the former and covers new ground. Second, Perkinson rethinks the basis of transformation. Key are not intention and moral appeal, as is commonly assumed, but the alternative energies and powers that arise in the midst of repression. Rather than painting a bleak picture of life under pressure, the book finds passion and vitality in unexpected places. The result is a profound reshaping of white reality and theology that has the potential to set the stage for things to come. Joerg Rieger, Professor of Systematic Theology, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University
BLACK RELIGION / WOMANIST THOUGHT / SOCIAL JUSTICE Series Editors: Dwight N. Hopkins and Linda E. Thomas Published by Palgrave: How Long this Road : Race, Religion, and the Legacy of C. Eric Lincoln Edited by Alton B. Pollard, III and Love Henry Whelchel, Jr. White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity By James W. Perkinson The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-Century American Christianity: Race, Heathens and the People of God By Sylvester A. Johnson African American Humanist Principles: Living and Thinking Like the Children of Nimrod By Anthony B. Pinn
White Theology Outing Supremacy in Modernity By James W. Perkinson
WHITE THEOLOGY James W. Perkinson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-4039-6584-4 ISBN 978-1-4039-8087-8 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4039-8087-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Perkinson, James W. A white theology of solidarity : signified upon and sounded out / by James Perkinson. p. cm. (Religion/culture/critique) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4039-6583-7 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4039-6584-4 (pbk.) 1. Race relations Religious aspects Christianity. 2. Race relations United States. I. Title. II. Series. BT734.2.P47 2004 277.3 0089 dc22 2004046488 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: November 2004 10987654321
Contents Acknowledgments Series Editors Preface Dwight N. Hopkins and Linda E. Thomas vii xi Introduction 1 I. White Privilege and Black Power 1. White Boy in the Ghetto 9 2. The Crisis of Race in the New Millennium 21 II. History, Consciousness, and Performance 3. Modern White Supremacy and Western Christian Soteriology 51 4. Black Double-Consciousness and White Double Takes 87 5. Black Performance 115 III. Presumption, Initiation, and Practice 6. White Posture 151 7. White Passage and Black Pedagogy 185 8. Anti-Supremacist Solidarity and Post-White Practice 217
vi Contents Epilogue 249 Notes 251 Bibliography 261 Index 271
Acknowledgments In one sense, this book has its beginnings on the basketball court of my youth. The outbreak of a sudden love affair with the game at the age of eight plunged me into the world of urban sport in the neighborhood I grew up in (which became majority black before my freshman year) and the inner city magnet school I attended from junior high through high school. There a passion to perform with abandon exploded into consciousness and whatever loves I have developed since (and there have been a number) owe their intensity to what I began to discover about both fear and desire in that world. The ancestry of this project goes back far behind its first conception in my mind. The obvious place to start the praise song, of course, is my family: my parents, Ralph and Mildred Perkinson, who taught me to respect all and pay particular attention to the underdog; my brother Jerry, with whom I shared all of my earliest triumphs and traumas; my grandparents on one side who modeled staunch German industry and understatement (that somewhere along the way got lost in my own development); and my grandmother on the other whose cantankerous liveliness taught us all how not to die before we die. Special friends all along the way also deserve mention: Deborah who introduced me to the ghetto and called me out with profound sensitivity and equally profound relentlessness; the entire family of Church of the Messiah, who counseled and confronted over 15 years, Champ and Magic and Mark and Gwen who schooled me in the neighborhood; Tapasananda at the ashram in Ganges, MI, who provided the supportive space to do much of the preliminary writing. My love of teaching I owe to Robert Werenski, who mentored and befriended far beyond expectation in early years of graduate work, whose eyes lit up worlds.
viii Acknowledgments The University of Chicago opened to me as delight in dialogue about almost everything with Robin and Jim, Zolani and Jan, Matthew and Deborah and Linda, Gerald and Kazi. Fellow student Nahum Chandler s rich insights on W. E. B. Du Bois in the context of the African American Studies Workshop provoked some of the thoughts that eventually galvanized this writing. Professor David Tracy quickly saw my path through theory as distinctly my own and provided the license I needed to pull together insight from outside the discipline. He believed in me beyond my own confidence. Michael Eric Dyson became, for a few of us willing to straddle institutions, a model of analytical acumen and acrobatic passion that left an indelible stamp. From my very first American Academy of Religions presentation for the Black Theology Group in 1993, James Cone and Will Coleman have given unsought support and affirmation. When Dwight Hopkins and Katherine Tanner came on board with the Divinity School at the inception of my proposal process, their ready input and strong encouragement made for very easy writing and long hours of worry-free deliberation. For such handling by my committee, I am deeply grateful. Katherine has ever been ready with letters of support in seeking presentation and publication opportunities; Dwight is finally due thanks for initiating the contact with Palgrave and tendering the support that resulted in the book. Amanda Johnson, my editor at the press, has been constant in excitement from our first contact, and seen a book inside a huge sheaf of dissertation. Over the years since graduation in 1997, others have entered the scene of my wandering ruminations: the entire faculty of Ecumenical Theological Seminary has always been quick with affirmation and interest; my department colleagues at Marygrove College likewise have been ever encouraging and accommodating of my needs. Oscar and Ken and George, thanks especially! Bill Wylie Kellerman close to home and Ched Myers across the country have been immeasurably influential as intimates in the struggle and conspirators in theory. Charles Long and the annual gathering of hard-thinking, freewheeling religionists at Farmington, Maine have graciously welcomed me into their deliberations for two years now, and contributed sharply to my perceptions of our modern dilemma. My friends among the arts community are also present on these pages in cadence and color, rhythm and risk with language. Ron Allen especially has been inspiration and consolation, the granddaddy of Detroit street polyphony, breaking open parallel universes inside this one, inside me. To my own inner circle of support through the limbo
Acknowledgments ix years of adjunct work Bev and Peg and Anna: I could not have made it without you! And finally, and most crucially, my wife, Lily Mendoza, has believed in me and my work since the day she met me more than two years ago often beyond my own belief in myself and has been my deepest confidant and dearest refuge at every turn since.
This page intentionally left blank
Series Editors Preface Jim Perkinson s book stakes out a novel space in today s study of religion and theology. It takes on directly the challenge from African American intellectuals, and black theologians especially, to white male scholars regarding the notion of race. In these pages, you will find perhaps the most comprehensive discussion of whiteness by a white male theologian. Perkinson wields the poetic pen as he brings to bear an interdisciplinary analytical scalpel in the dissection of what is a white race. Part autobiography (i.e., a white man living in a northern ghetto), part an aesthetic performance (i.e., Perkinson is a poet), and partly the result of a sharp and careful mind (i.e., the author earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago Divinity School), this book will keep you engaged throughout. What is race? What is white supremacy from a theological perspective? For the author, power in America is disproportionately distributed among white citizens and thereby enables the latter the luxury to avoid defining and thinking about a white identity. Yet, for Perkinson, the American white racial contract establishes the norm for how all Americans perceive themselves and those around them. Amidst contemporary conversations over policy, morality, business, the family, and culture, it is refreshing to hear a new and welldocumented claim about the proverbial elephant in the room. For Perkinson, the white elephant constantly avoided and not talked about is the white race in America. What does it mean rationally to be white? How does it feel to occupy the privileged position in a racial hierarchy? And what implications can one draw from the white community s access to and control over much power, property, and privilege? Perkinson gifts us with a theology of responsibility and wholeness, not just for the white community, but for all citizens on this space called earth.
xii Series Editors Preface Jim Perkinson s groundbreaking work continues the quality and breadth of publications in the black religion/womanist theology/social justice series. The series publishes both authored and edited manuscripts that have depth, breadth, and theoretical edge and addresses both academic and nonspecialist audiences. It will produce works engaging any dimension of black religion or womanist thought as they pertain to social justice. Womanist thought is a new approach in the study of African American women s perspectives. The series will include a variety of African American religious expressions. By this we mean traditions such as Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Humanism, African diasporic practices, religion and gender, religion and black gays/lesbians, ecological justice issues, African American religiosity and its relation to African religions, new black religious movements (e.g., Daddy Grace, Father Divine, or the Nation of Islam), or religious dimensions in African American secular experiences (such as the spiritual aspects of aesthetic efforts like the Harlem Renaissance and literary giants such as James Baldwin, or the religious fervor of the Black Consciousness movement, or the religion of compassion in the black women s club movement). Dwight N. Hopkins, University of Chicago Divinity School Linda E. Thomas, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago